26/03/14: Encyclopedia of Life

Cells stained for keratin and DNA: such parts of life exist because of the whole, but also to sustain it (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes this exists – increasing the awareness and understanding of living nature through an Encyclopedia of Life (EoL) that gathers, generates, and shares knowledge in an open, freely accessible and trusted digital resource is a massive resource.

Our knowledge of the many life-forms on Earth - of animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria - is scattered around the world in books, journals, databases, websites, specimen collections, and in the minds of people everywhere. The group of people and organisations behind EoL are continuing to gather this information together and make available to everyone – anywhere – at a moment’s notice.

Just recently they have launched TraitBank, which is a searchable, comprehensive, open digital repository for organism traits, measurements, interactions and other facts for all taxa across the tree of life. TraitBank currently features over 3 million records related to more than 250 attributes for 272,720 taxa obtained from 32 data sources.
Read more here ...